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Message: <blockquote data-quote="rowport" data-source="post: 2083896" data-attributes="member: 9729">The Good StuffErik-As always, thanks for participating in the thread.  Somehow, you keep your cool and answer the (frequently inane) questions and complaints even when the very *subject header* is a bash to your product (btw, is any pop-culture entertainment medium really *Relevant* anymore, Steel Wind?  LOL).I completely disagree with Steel Wind.  And, since I *buy* your product, and he does *not*, I hope that my opinion carries more weight with you.  I do like Dragon- love it, in fact.  The changes to Dungeon were welcome improvements, and I look forward to your efforts to focus on Dragon.  In the hopes that the baby will not go out with the bathwater, I thought I would counter all the negativity on this thread with what I *like* about Dragon (and hope will stay in it) using #329 as my baseline:The Legacy of Beowulf: This is great, great, great.  I love the idea of using mythos not yet widely explored in D&D.  I like the idea that you could pull out pieces to use- even just Beowulf for a Fighter character.  This might be a trend with the Lovecraft material before it- I hope that continues.  Good stuff.The Petit Tarrasque: This is an interesting concept, although I think the article would benefit from tighter editing- it dragged on rather long.  I am not sure this is really directly useful for gaming, but that is OK with me, I am still interested in reading it.  (I felt the same way about the samurai versus knight article- it was just fun to read.  I liked that one more than this one, though.)Mesopotamian Mythos: This is great.  Dieties do not need statblocks IMO (no offense intended, Erik...).Demonomicon of Iggwilv: Pazuzu: This is pretty interesting by itself, although I think a series of demons and/or devils would get old, just like any subject done too much.  Instead, a more general focus on organizations- cults, religions, thieves guilds, etc. might have broader appeal.  Still, I liked it.The Ecology of the Kenku: These articles are really fun.  I like the in-depth coverage of different creatures.  Complimenting the other articles in the issue with related races is a useful trick to make the whole better; I think I really liked the Incursion and Gladiator issues of two years back for that reason.A Novel Approach: Eberron’s Marked for Death: Blah.Class Acts: These articles are wonderful.  I love the ideas, and have used several with real and direct impact on my characters.  I am not an 'intuitive' rules guy, so the suggestions here help me avoid boner mistakes.  Showing people how to use (not abuse) the rules without creating new ones is a really great idea.  (As an aside, I enjoy Skip Williams' Rules of the Game article series for the same reason.)Bazaar of the Bizarre: Whatever you call these articles, I like them.Under Command: I have no strong opinion on these.  I do not play the D&D minis game, but can see how they are an important product to cover.Silicon Sorcery: Some of these are good, some bad.  The #329 one was weak.First Watch: I like these.  I buy game stuff like mad.Scale Mail: Well, what can you say about a letters column?Sage Advice: This is useful to me.  I think that Skip Williams gets too much flak here on-line (much like Paizo, now that I think about it...)Comics: The Dragon comics are great.  The Dungeon comics are the ones that need serious work (except for Tony M.'s.)Crunch/Fluff Ratio: From your comments here and in your editorials I think that you feel the ratio of crunch to fluff needs to swing to fluff.  I cannot disagree with that, as reading fluff is generally more entertaining than reading crunch, at least to me.  But, I honestly feel that is is pretty balanced right now, and has been roughly since the 'relaunch' last year.  Maybe 50/50 is too much, but I would hate to see it become, say, 25/75 OR 75/25- too much of either is not the right approach.I will cross-post this on the Paizo boards as well.  I hope that it is helpful.</blockquote>

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